Drake boasted about buying and melting down Pharrell Williams‘ old chains in a few recent songs, but Pharrell isn’t bothered by the gestures, calling them the actions of a “fan of music.” In a conversation with GQ, Pharrell was asked how he felt about Drake’s verses from songs like Travis Scott’s “Meltdown” and the Kendrick Lamar diss “Family Matters.”
Pharrell responded with a typically even-keeled answer, saying, “No, because I think beyond all of the on-goings, at the heart of all of it, he’s a fan of music. He’s a fan of the history of what it is, and I happen to be a part of that, and those artifacts are a part of it.” He said he was “cool” with Drake buying his chains and didn’t have any thoughts on what the Canadian star melting them down might mean about Drake’s feelings about him.
“I guess some things are not for me to understand,” he admitted. “When you let things go, a huge part of it is actually letting go. Not just of the physical item, but letting go of your connection to what it’s supposed to mean, or the memory. You’re literally letting them go. That was the purpose. It’s like when people sell something and they go, ‘I just want to make sure you take care of it because this is my baby.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no.’ This is not my baby. That’s why I’m letting it go.”
While some fans determined Drake’s actions and bars to be disrespectful toward Pharrell (“I melt down the chains that I bought from yo’ boss / Give a f*ck about all of that heritage sh*t” from “Meltdown” and “You wanna take up for Pharrell, then come get his legacy out of my house” from “Family Matters”), it seemed that Williams was merely collateral damage in Drake’s ongoing feuds with Pusha T and Kendrick Lamar — the only ones he is widely believed to have lost. Maybe his first step at making amends could be to mend fences with the Virginia hitmaker.